When you talk about the Cleveland Browns and the salary cap, the conversation almost always starts with Deshaun Watson. That’s no accident.
His fully guaranteed contract has been the defining financial move of this front office era. But here’s the thing: if Watson had played at the level he showed in Houston, nobody would be questioning the price tag.
In today’s NFL, elite quarterbacks get paid - and teams are happy to pay them. Guaranteed money isn’t a problem when the guy under center is delivering wins.
That’s what makes the situation in Cleveland so frustrating. Under GM Andrew Berry, the Browns have taken a page out of the Howie Roseman playbook in Philadelphia - using the salary cap as a flexible, strategic tool rather than a hard ceiling.
The idea was clear: build a talented roster now, worry about the financial gymnastics later. And with a high-performing Watson, that approach could’ve paid off in a big way.
Instead, the Watson trade hasn’t panned out, and the ripple effect is everywhere. When your quarterback isn’t carrying his weight, every other financial decision starts to look worse. That includes the dead cap hits - money tied up in players no longer on the roster - which are now a major storyline in Cleveland.
Let’s break down how that works. Dead cap is often the result of teams trying to create immediate cap space by pushing financial obligations into the future.
It’s a calculated risk. Spend now, pay later - ideally when the cap has grown and the percentage impact of those dollars is smaller.
For example, $10 million on a $200 million cap eats up 5%. But if the cap rises to $250 million, that same $10 million only takes up 4%.
It’s basic math, but it’s also smart business - if the roster is winning games.
That’s where the Watson situation complicates things. If he had been a steady, above-average starter, pushing money into future years for players like Amari Cooper would’ve made sense.
You restructure, you add void years, you keep the window open. But that window slammed shut faster than expected.
Cooper’s situation is a prime example. He was traded to the Buffalo Bills, then signed with the Raiders, and has since retired. Yet somehow, he’s still costing the Browns a significant chunk of cap space - one of the highest dead cap hits in the league this year, in fact.
Here’s how it happened: Cooper was looking for a new deal in Cleveland, but the Browns didn’t see him as part of their long-term picture. Instead of extending him, they added $5 million in not-likely-to-be-earned incentives to his contract, giving him a shot at $25 million instead of the $20 million he was originally set to make in 2024.
To make that work financially, the Browns converted $18.79 million of that salary into a signing bonus. That’s where the void years came in - 2027 and 2028 were added to the contract purely for proration purposes.
It’s a common maneuver in today’s NFL: spread the cap hit over more years, even if the player won’t actually be on the roster. The result?
A hefty $15.032 million in dead money tied to Cooper alone.
Moves like this are part of the modern cap strategy. They make sense when the core of your team is producing. But when the centerpiece of your roster - your quarterback - isn’t playing up to expectations, every dollar spent on a retired or relocated player feels like a missed opportunity.
Look around the league this year, and the list of biggest dead cap hits is full of familiar names - guys on their second or third teams, or like Cooper, already out of the league. It’s a reminder that the salary cap isn’t just about who you have on your roster, but who you used to have - and how well you managed those exits.
For the Browns, the cap strategy wasn’t flawed in theory. It was built on the assumption that Deshaun Watson would be a franchise quarterback.
Without that piece in place, the financial structure starts to wobble. And now, Cleveland is paying for it - literally - in the form of dead money that’s clogging up their books while the team tries to find its footing.